Hellfire (6 page)

It had bothered him at first,
when he’d watched Dax defer to Eddy on so many points, until he realized that
Eddy knew more about this world and her decisions usually made more sense than
something he or Dax might choose to do. It had taken some getting used to,
women who were so self-assured, who had no problem taking the lead, even in
battle.

He wondered what Ginny would
be like if she were ever to fight beside him. The image of her striking out at
that concrete bear when it had her cornered that night in Evergreen flashed
through his mind.

Ginny would be an amazing
warrior. Unfortunately, she was a mortal and no match for demons. Then he
remembered that Eddy had been mortal when she’d bested the demon king, and
she’d come through that battle in better shape than any of them.

He was still pondering that
when they paused in front of a door that looked like all the others along this
stretch. Ginny slipped her square of plastic into a slot on the door, waited
until a light blinked, shoved the handle down, and entered. It all seemed
relatively simple. Taron would love it here. His friend was fascinated by
technology. There were so many amazing things humans used to make their lives
easier—as well as a lot more complicated.

Alton followed Ginny into the
room. It was fairly large with two big beds and a small table with two chairs
sitting by the window. He really couldn’t let himself think about the beds, not
when he knew Ginny would be sleeping in one while he tried to sleep in the
other.

It was going to be impossible,
actually sleeping with her so close beside him, yet not with him. He put that
out of his mind. No reason to borrow trouble.

He opened a couple of doors
and found a closet and a bathroom. Everything they’d need for the night, though
he could have done without the extra bed. Ginny tossed her purse on the one by
the window and punched numbers into her cell phone. Alton left his bag on the
bed by the door and slipped his scabbard off his shoulder. He left everything lying
on the colorful bedding and went into the bathroom.

He still smelled the stench of
demon on his skin and in his hair. While Ginny was on the phone, he took a
quick shower. There were little tubes of shampoo and conditioner, similar to
what he used in Lemuria, though at home they came in ceramic pots set into the
walls of a natural hot spring in his private rooms.

He was scrubbed and out of the
shower in a matter of minutes, but he’d forgotten to bring clean clothing into
the bathroom. He ran his fingers through his hair and tossed the tangled mess
over his shoulder. He’d comb it out later, maybe braid it the way he usually
wore it. He’d hardly had time the past few days. Life in Earth’s dimension was
so much more complicated than Lemuria.

He glanced toward the closed
door and listened. Ginny was still speaking to someone, so he wrapped a towel
around his hips, grabbed his dirty clothing and walked back into the room.

Ginny’s back was to him. He
dug through his bag and found clean underwear and a new shirt. The jeans he’d
been wearing would have to do for tomorrow. He didn’t plan to sleep in them.

He dropped the towel and
slipped on a clean pair of the soft pants Eddy’d called boxer shorts. After
millennia wearing nothing but his flowing robes, he’d had a hard time getting
used to such restrictive clothing, but the navy blue knit shorts with the
narrow white stripes weren’t too uncomfortable.

He was folding up his dirty
clothes and stashing them in his bag when Ginny ended her call.

She stared at the phone for a
moment. To think that just a few short hours ago, if anyone had mentioned
demons she would have thought they were nuts. But the conversation she’d just
had with Ed Marks had thrown an entirely new light on the situation.

She heard Alton behind her.
She’d been vaguely aware of the sound of the shower, and the thought of him in
there naked might, at any other time, have made her crazy.

Not now. There was just too
much weird, unbelievable, and truly scary stuff going on—but when she turned
around, she almost dropped the phone.

He was on the other side of
the bed, his fair skin glowing and damp from the shower, his long hair hanging
loose over his shoulders in thick, wet, streaky blond tangles. A fitted pair of
knit boxer shorts hugged his slim hips and muscular thighs, but they didn’t
come close to hiding the rest of him.

He certainly looked human,
though surprisingly muscular. She hadn’t expected the ripple of muscle across
his chest, the dusting of pale gold hair connecting two perfectly shaped, coppery
nipples, or the hard ridges defining his flat belly. Water beaded on his skin
and glistened in the perfect dip of his navel. A darker line of hair trailed
down from the indentation and disappeared beneath the elastic band of his
shorts.

Ginny swallowed. She raised
her chin and caught Alton grinning at her, obviously well aware of what she’d
been admiring. She felt heat rising from her chest to her cheeks. “I just
talked to Ed,” she said.
Or tried to say.
She cleared
her throat. “Eddy and Dax are somewhere up near Grant’s Pass, Oregon. There’ve
been reports of cats and dogs acting crazy, sort of like what we’ve got here in
Sedona.”

Alton walked around the bed
and sat on the side closest to her, totally unconcerned about the fact he was
wearing nothing but his underwear. “I was afraid of that,” he said. “There’s a
place I’ve heard of in southern Oregon. Eddy says it’s just a tourist spot, but
in Lemuria we’ve long been aware of it as a lesser vortex. It’s similar to
Mount Shasta—the same idea, anyway, though not as powerful. The demons must
have created another portal to cross through from Abyss.”

She would not look at anything
but his eyes. It was impossible to carry on a conversation with all that
beautiful bare skin so close—so clean and damp and utterly touchable. At least
he had gorgeous green eyes. She could do this.
Maybe.

“Where’s their entryway here?”

His grin spread even wider and
she was sure he knew what she was thinking. How much she wanted to look and
touch and even taste. She was not going to go there.
Absolutely
not.

“Bell Rock,” he said.
“Though it might not be the only one.
There are multiple
energy vortexes in this area, but I found and sealed a portal in Bell Rock on
my way here from Mount Shasta. We use the portals to move between dimensions—they’re
powered by the energy of the vortexes, and no, I have no idea what causes the
power. They are what they are—and where they are.
That’s how
I got here so fast, using the portal in the Shasta vortex.
All of them
connect on another dimensional plane. When I entered at Shasta and exited at
Bell Rock, it was the equivalent of about a hundred yards down a tunnel. In
reality it’s over a thousand miles.”

“I know. I flew here in a jet,
remember?” She still couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. It was
just wrong on so many levels, beginning with the fact he was sitting here
practically naked and they were talking about interdimensional travel. It would
be so much easier if he’d just put his jeans back on…and if she could go back
to thinking he was nuts. Unfortunately, everything was making such a weird kind
of sense, she had to believe.
Especially after talking to Ed.

Eddy’s dad had sounded too
concerned to be putting her on.

Alton nodded. “I know. And
it’s
all my
fault.”

“You already said that. It’s
okay. You’re forgiven.” She sat on the bed and realized it was a mistake the
moment she sat down. Their knees practically touched, so she slowly curled her
legs under her and scooted back on the bed, like it was the way she’d planned
to sit in the first place.

Except Alton’s big grin said
he knew exactly what she was up to. She decided to ignore him. Or at least
ignore what she thought he might be thinking.

“So what now?” she said.
“We’ve got demons taking over animals in Sedona, possible demon issues in
southern Oregon, and demons in Evergreen. Your entire army consists of one
ex-demon and my best friend, both armed with talking swords, Eddy’s dad, who
has a bad hip and has to be in his late sixties, and a dog with a fairy stuck
in her head.
And you.
I hate to be a killjoy, but that
doesn’t give me much confidence.”

Alton laughed. “You forgot to
mention my sword, or the fact that Eddy, Dax, Bumper, and I are immortal. We’re
not easy to kill. And Ed’s hip is all better. That was part of the deal Dax
made with the Edenites.” After dropping that little nugget without more
explanation, he sighed. “You’re right, though. The demons are gaining strength
and there are too few of us. I would like to study some of these possessed
animals up close. Can you take me to the vet’s clinic in the morning? With so
many avatars caged, I might be able to destroy the demons within their hosts
without harming the animals.”

“You’re kidding, right? You’re
just going to waltz into the clinic with your glowing sword and start killing
demons?” He obviously didn’t have a clue how the real world worked.

He shook his head. “Not quite.
I want to be there before the clinic opens for the day. Hopefully a few staff
members will have arrived early so they can let us in. I don’t want to break
your laws, but I’ll use a compulsion to hide our presence. Once I have an idea
how the demons are gaining control over their avatars, I’ll know better how to fight
them.”

Maybe he did have a clue,
after all. She’d forgotten about his ability to hypnotize people. Did that mean
he was going to kiss everyone at the vet’s? There’d been a couple of really
cute assistants working there when she and Markus dropped Tomoff, and…Ginny
touched her fingertips to her lips.

Alton’s soft chuckle had her
blinking and staring at him. “What?”

“Your face is too expressive
for your own good. No, I won’t have to kiss anyone to compel them to forget my
presence. Remember? You’re an exception, Ginny. I merely have to wave my hand
in front of most people. You I had to kiss.”

“You keep saying that like
it’s
punishment.” She tilted her head and cocked an eyebrow,
well aware she was flirting with him. She never flirted. It just led to expectations
she wasn’t about to fulfill, but there was something about Alton. No. Flirting
with him was an even bigger mistake, especially since they were sharing a motel
room.

Before he had a chance to
respond, she straightened up and said, “Tell me about your world.
About Lemuria.
According to Ed’s books, you’re supposed to
have a horn in the middle of your forehead, wear long, white robes and lots of
weird jewelry, and be close to twelve feet tall.”

He flipped his long legs up on
the bed, plumped the pillows, and leaned back against the headboard. He was so
tall, he’d have to sleep crosswise, even on the queen-size bed, but he wasn’t
anywhere close to twelve feet tall.

He’d already told her his
height.
Six feet, eight inches tall.
Wow.
His green eyes twinkled with good humor and Ginny
realized she was grinning right back at him.

“I’ve read all about your
concept of Lemurians. Ed Marks had more than enough of our supposed ancient
history. Not much of it, beyond our name, is right.
Our name,
and the fact that our world sank beneath the sea many thousands of years ago.”

“That really happened?”

He nodded. “It did. I was
still a child when the end came, but I remember our lives before, playing on
the beautiful beaches, swimming in the sea. The island continent of Lemuria was
a wonderful place to be a child.”

“Wait a minute. You said it
happened thousands of years ago. So how could you remember? You’re what?
Maybe thirty?
Thirty-five?”

He got an odd, uncomfortable
look on his face. Then he slowly shook his head and sat up, grabbed a comb out
of his bag, and began running it through his long hair, tugging roughly at the
wet tangles. After a moment he stopped. His shoulders rose and fell with the
deep breath he inhaled and then exhaled.

He raised his head and smiled
sadly at her. “I told you I was an immortal, Ginny. My world sank beneath the
sea around twelve thousand years ago. I have existed, since my birth, for
almost fifteen thousand of your years. Among my people, I am a young man. My
father, who is much older than I am, remembers a time when we traded with the
people of Atlantis, when our older members traveled among the stars.”

He stared down at the tangles
he’d snagged with his comb and sighed. When he raised his head, Ginny was
almost certain there were tears in his eyes. “I’ve lived through the birth of
your civilization, through wars and climate changes, earthquakes and volcanic
eruptions. But never, in all my long years, have I seen a threat as terrifying
as the one our worlds face now. Demons have always existed, but not like this.
Not with the strength to actually offset the balance between good and evil.
The strength to destroy your people.
To
end mine.”

His pain arced between them,
so powerful it was almost tangible. Ginny stood up and crossed the small distance
between the two beds. She took the comb out of his hands. “Turn around, Alton.”

He gazed at her a moment, and
then he turned and sat in the middle of the bed with his legs crossed. She
knelt behind him and worked the comb slowly through the long, silky strands of
his hair, carefully removing the tangles one by one.

“You said Eddy and Dax went to
Lemuria to see if your people would help fight. What happened with that? Why’d
they end up in jail?”